Labor plea to extend asylum trial

The Labor Party has backed calls for family groups of asylum seekers, including the father, to live outside the Woomera detention centre on a trial basis.

Labor immigration spokeswoman Julia Gillard yesterday rejected government claims the move would increase the risk they would abscond.

John Howard yesterday rejected a proposal from his own advisory group on detention for the extension of a trial allowing women and children to stay outside the Woomera centre.

The Prime Minister argued overseas experience showed asylum seekers would be able to "dissolve away into the community" if whole families were able to live outside detention centres.

"If that happens successfully for those who abscond, then you immediately create a very powerful magnet for more people to try and come here. That is the problem," Mr Howard told 3AW.");document.write("

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"I've said many times that we don't like detaining people, nobody likes that, but we don't believe there is any workable alternative to the policies that we're adopting," he said.

But Ms Gillard argued the homes used for the trial at Woomera were secure, saying the call from the government's Immigration Detention Advisory Group, was consistent with Labor's call for children to be taken out of detention centres.

"We say the government could immediately build on the alternate detention trial at Woomera, expand it so that it can cater for all accompanied children in the system and deal with family groups," she said.

"There is no possibility of absconding because these are secured premises. They are secured at the perimeter."

She said the trial involved four ordinary homes with a perimeter light beam that sounds an alarm if broken.

"There has been no security breach at the alternate detention trial and we know there have been multiple breakouts from Woomera," she said.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock responded that while there was "low security" at the homes used for the trial, it was still much easier to get out of them than out of the detention centre.

Three women and six children are participating in the trial, which is believed to have been judged a success in a report to Mr Ruddock. Two of the women have partners who are in the Woomera detention centre.

Ms Gillard said she supported extending the trial by gradually extending the period adult males spent with their families.

She said Labor's policy of detention was still being finalised and would be released in coming months.

"Whatever view one holds about the appropriate way of dealing with asylum seekers, children are the innocent ones in a situation not of their making and beyond their control," she said.

Mr Howard said he respected Ray Funnell, the member of the advisory group who outlined the proposal in The Age yesterday, but said the government was "not disposed to change" its attitude.